So the question arises, do the suburbs maintain a semblance of the larger-than-life appeal of their more famous neighbor?

Today, we’ll use science and data to determine which Louisville ‘burbs need a little tender loving care – the sore thumbs of the Louisville area if you will. Realistically, you can’t expect all the suburbs to live up to Louisville proper, although Prospect certainly tries.

We examined the 27 biggest suburbs of Louisville to find out the worst places to live. And while you won’t find them on the worst places to live in Kentucky, these ten places are a little too far downwind of Louisville in terms of quality of life:

Brooks

Hillview

Shepherdsville

New Albany, IN

Charlestown, IN

Clarksville

Jeffersonville

La Grange

Shively

Sellersburg, IN

Read on to see how we determined the places around Louisville that need a pick-me-up. And remember, don’t blame the messenger. And once you’re done, you can look at the bottom of the story for a complete chart of worst to best.

Advertisement. Article Continues Below.

How we determined the worst Louisville ‘burbs

To figure out how bad a place is to live in, we only needed to know what kinds of things people like and then decide what cities have the least amount of those things. We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Using the Census’s most recent 2010-2014 American Community Survey, this is the criteria we used:

Low unemployment (Less jobs)

Low median income (Less pay)

Low population density (No things to do)

Low home values (No one’s willing to pay to live here)

High number of high school drop outs

Then, we ranked each place that have over 5,000 people around Louisville for each of these criteria from worst to best.

The place with the lowest average rankings for these criteria ranks as the worst suburb of Louisville.

Read on below to learn more about these terrible places around Louisville to live. Or skip to the end to see the list of all 27 suburbs ranked from worst to best.

This list is a scientific analysis based on real data and is completely unbiased. Snarkiness incorporated for entertainment purposes only. Hold on to your pants.

1. Brooks

Source: Google Maps

Population: 2,964Median Income: $40,064Median Home Value: $100,700

2. Hillview

Source: Google Maps

Population: 7,785Median Income: $46,707Median Home Value: $109,400

3. Shepherdsville

Source: Wikipedia

Population: 11,573Median Income: $48,571Median Home Value: $121,900

4. New Albany, IN

Source: Wikipedia

Population: 36,496Median Income: $40,061Median Home Value: $112,300

5. Charlestown, IN

Source: Flickr

Population: 7,802Median Income: $43,046Median Home Value: $109,500

6. Clarksville

Source: Wikipedia

Population: 21,579Median Income: $41,788Median Home Value: $112,300

7. Jeffersonville

Source: Google Maps

Population: 45,869Median Income: $51,706Median Home Value: $125,400

8. La Grange

Source: Wikipedia

Population: 8,283Median Income: $53,778Median Home Value: $159,400

9. Shively

Source: Wikipedia

Population: 15,450Median Income: $34,826Median Home Value: $101,000

10. Sellersburg, IN

Source: Wikipedia

Population: 8,004Median Income: $62,826Median Home Value: $149,000

The areas around Louisville that you probably don’t want to live in

Well there you have it — the worst of the ‘burbs surrounding Louisville with Brooks landing ahead of the pack.

As we mentioned earlier, the suburbs around Louisville aren’t all bad. Prospect takes the cake as the best place to live around Louisville/.

For the chart below, these are ranked from worst to best.
For more Kentucky reading, check out: